Several new features, Pandora adjustments, more new art, and balance changes!

Features

• A search function for cards when using the deck builder has now been implemented. This feature is considered to be in a “beta” state, and will undergo many improvements in the future. [/*]
• The last deck you have selected will now be remembered upon re-connection, instead of the first one in your list.[/*]
• After creating a new, complete deck, that deck will become automatically selected.[/*]

Pandora changes

Pandora artifacts have changed slightly in functionality:

• It is no longer possible for an artifact to be the top card of any deck.[/*]
• Artifacts should be more evenly spread throughout each deck. This should reduce the chance of drawing multiples in one turn. [/*]
• Epic artifacts were appearing more often than intended. This has been fixed.[/*]

Notes: After much internal discussion, the improved reward system will not be entering the game this week as we mentioned earlier. We have determined there are several important steps to take to make sure this reward system is the best fit for Faeria.

We also want to make it clear we've been listening to the heavy amount of feedback following Pandora's release.
Read more about that and our overall goals for Pandora in today’s Faeria Friday post.

Bug fixes

• Various UI bugs have been fixed, including one preventing you from selecting your first deck after deleting another[/*]
• Several bugs in cards have been fixed, including Mystic Beast and Magda.[/*]
• Several enhancements to client performance have been applied[/*]
• Fixed a problem where “Disenchanting all in Excess” wasn’t providing the full disenchant value for cards that had changed.[/*]
• Fixed several translation mistakes[/*]

Lobby and Tournament Lobby improvements

• A lobby will no longer be canceled if the lobby leader leaves. It will only be cancelled when everyone leaves.[/*]
• Re-connections to lobbies are now allowed. There is a 3 minute re-connection timer for normal lobbies, and 5 minutes for tournament lobbies.[/*]
• Tournament lobbies now have an option to choose the amount of games in a match. (Best of 1, Bo3, Bo5)[/*]
• The total amount of wins are now displayed above each player's name in tournament lobbies[/*]
• In tournament lobbies, both players must play with first deck in their list for the very first game[/*]
• In tournament lobbies, the winner is forced to keep playing with the same deck[/*]
• The tournament sign up screen has been adjusted so that you must pick one deck at a time[/*]
• "Use Timebank" is now provided as an optional checkbox in tournament lobbies.[/*]

Time banks are persistent throughout the entire tournament match, and provide 12 minutes of time for each possible game. For example, a Best of 3 match provides 36 minutes total for each player across all games. If the Time bank expires, that player loses the match.

These new tournament lobby features should hint to you more of the direction we intend for future official tournaments to take. As always, we will continue to improve and expand on this.

New illustrations

• Steamforge Enforcer - (Vitaliy) [Concepts by Jordi/Franck][/*]
• Punishment - (Vitaliy) [Concepts by Jordi/Franck][/*]
• Underground Brigand - (Tokkun Studio) [Concepts by Jordi/Franck][/*]

Balance changes

Tale of the Old Turtle

+1 Faeria, +1 Lake Cost

At its previous cost Tale of the Old Turtle provided a potential upside of +4f in addition to some serious card advantage. Initial testing implied that this was a powerhouse card, but that the chance of pulling a Ruby Fish, Aurora’s Dream or similar card kept the average power of the card well in check. The more we’ve tested it though, the more we’ve seen how oppressive the card can be now that so many cards have been buffed (reducing your chance of getting weak cards off the Tale). Increasing the faeria and lake costs by 1 makes the card a bigger commitment. It also helps make it even more distinct from Spellwhirl’s design.

Wavecrash Colossus

[u]Old Version[/u]
Wavecrash Colossus - 10f, 2L
Creature
Costs 2f less for each time you’ve gathered from an opponent’s well (minimum cost: 4f).
8/8

[u]New Version[/u]
Wavecrash Colossus - 8f, 2L
Creature
Costs 1f less for each time you’ve harvested from an opponent’s well (minimum cost: 4f).
7/7

Wavecrash Colossus was a bit too swingy and produced too much value too easily with the buffs to several of Blue’s high mobility cards. We decided to shift it to 4 harvests for max value instead of 3, as well as make the creature’s body equal to a Verduran Force (instead of being able to break the jolly green giant in a fight). We also changed the design to be based around 1f discounts instead of 2f ones to make the card less swingy (especially in pandora, where wells eventually deplete entirely).

Rarity changes

Triton Chef: Common to Epic
Gabrian Noble: Epic to Rare
Triton Diver: Rare to Common

These rarity changes were made in order to fix a book keeping error that ended up with Triton Chef at Common instead of Epic. Naturally, the card giving you Triton Banquet should not be less rare than the card it gives you. We apologize for the temporary confusion, and will be applying a rarity refund as with the patch earlier this week.

-The Faeria Team

[ 2016-05-27 19:26:19 CET ] [Original Post]